Zombie Zoo
by ndp
Summary: Mars Investigations: Boston Branch  sole employee: Veronica Mars  is hired by a zoo keeper to investigate disappearing avicultre. Then one Logan Echolls answers the branch's help wanted ad. Things get weirder from there, though no zombies are involved.
1. Monday

Monday:

"_This is a good road, you never stepped here, _

_you can't betray the faith that is kept here, _

_and no more tears will be wept here, _

_this is a good road."_

_- "This is a Good Street", Mudcrutch_

"Do you have any experience with animals?"

That was the first question Jessie Montgomery asked when she entered Veronica Mars' office. She is a tall woman, and she refused to sit down.

"I found a lost dog once."

"You folks think dogs are people. I asked if you have any experience with animals." Jessie placed an unusual, inexplicably worshipful emphasis on the word _animals_.

"I retrieved my high school's parrot mascot."

"Real parrot?"

"Yes."

"Parrot's good." She sat down then, exhaling heavily. "I want to hire you to find some missing birds. Exotics, if you will."

"Yours or someone else's?"

"Let's say mine." She tried and failed to be subtle.

"I'll need more than that."

"I work for the Franklin Park Zoo. Head keeper in the aviary. Our birds are going missing."

"And you couldn't call the police because?"

"I needed someone more discreet." Veronica had to wonder why people always made discreet sound like a dirty word, which they did, invariably. "I'm in line for a promotion to avian curator, and I think they'd bypass me if they knew about this."

"I'll see what I can do. Any leads?"

After Jessie left, Veronica got the distinct impression taking that job was a terrible idea. But food wouldn't pay for itself. Sometimes she wished she ate less, or liked food less, but then she would find herself at J. P. Licks buying some of their painfully good, ludicrously priced ice cream and flirting with the cashier. She moved from her office to the front desk, and settled into the heavy wooden chair behind it. She unfolds the day's _Boston Tribune_, picking up where she left off when Jessie arrived.

The office was as similar to her father's as possible-furniture from the thrift store, mismatched and heavy and dark. Knock-off Tiffany lamps. "Mars Investigations: Neptune CA - Boston MA" in the window. A bell jangles when the door swings open, which it did then.

"I'm here about your help wanted ad." This is genuinely surprising. The ad, which Veronica had run in the local free paper for five weeks, says "Help Wanted: Crap Pay, No Benefits." No one has ever come in about the help wanted ad, except some teenagers on a bet to see if she was serious, and she was only running it to assuage her father's concern about his only daughter working alone in a P.I. office in Boston. He wanted her to hire a secretary. Preferably male. She told him that no self-respecting male wants to be a woman's secretary and she had Reserves. She could hear him raising his eyebrows over the phone: "I'm hoping you'll find someone my age or older, unattractive, possibly without a penis. And you forget I've met that dog. He's a pathetic excuse for a pit bull."

But that doesn't change the fact that someone was there, and they claimed to be interested in working for crap pay with no benefits. "For the secretarial position? Really?" Veronica said, and looked up.

"_Really_." Logan Echolls grinned back at her. She put down the paper.

"How did you find me?" The question is hostile but the tone is not; it is simply something Veronica needed to know if their conversation was to continue.

"What? No 'Nice to see you, Logan', no 'I've missed you, Logan', no 'How are you Logan?'"

"Not even a 'Here's an application, Logan,' though you will note I haven't kicked you out or sicked the hound on you yet. How did you find me?"

"Duncan gave me the address," he said, pulling one of the chairs against the wall up in front of the desk and putting his elbows up. Of course the good ex gave the bad, terrible, no good, very bad ex her address. Of course.

Though actually that didn't make sense. Duncan knew as well as anyone that Veronica Mars moved to Boston primarily to avoid Logan Echolls, though she should've known it wouldn't work.

But still, Duncan wouldn't have given Logan her address. She raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"No," he laughed. "But that boy keeps a Roll-a-dex, like an old man, and I took a peek one day, and guess who's in it? You're not the only one with investigative chops."

"Seriously? I'm in Duncan's Roll-a-dex?" She had to ask.

"Mars Investigations is in Duncan's Roll-a-dex, and happy birthday me, there was an address in _Boston._" He shook his head and looked around incredulously. "Bahs-tahn. I guess he thought he might need your services some day." He made services sound dirty. But then again, Logan could make anything sound dirty. "Though honestly, if I knew it'd be that easy I would've just Googled a little more intensively."

"We don't have a webpage."

"Liar. I Googled it. That's how I found out that you need a _secretary_."

That paper had a website. If she had known, she would've advertised somewhere slightly more...low profile. But, okay, she was a liar: she'd owned since Mac gave it to her for my birthday years ago, though right now the website's not live. Still, Logan didn't know that.

"Logan, you can't be my secretary. Can you type one hundred twenty words a minute?"

"Veronica, I know this is not normal interview protocol."

"Logan, you don't _want_ to be my secretary."

"No, I want to be in your pants. Right now. But I'll take what I can get."

"I'm wearing a skirt," she snapped back, and immediately regretted it. He grinned.

"Better yet."

"You're sober," Veronica noted, because usually when Logan visited he was not.

"The flight attendant ran out of those little liquor bottles. Gave them all to some couple on their honeymoon."

"Does that mean you flew _business_?" Veronica looked aghast, before realizing she'd changed the subject to something other than Logan's immediate departure. "Because you should really fly business _back_."

"Are you seeing anyone?"

"Yes. He works at an ice cream parlor. He took me clamming." She did have a boyfriend in Boston who took her clamming. It was terrible. She was knee deep in mud, and he just chortled and said, "What? I thought you liked dirty work." They broke up, needless to say.

"I don't believe you."

"Then why'd you ask?"

"To see if you'd lie about it. If you're with someone, why were you here over lunch?"

"Because we don't need to see each other constantly Logan. We're adults. Also, your attempt at spying is not going to help get you a secretarial position."

He hummed to himself, "Hey little freak with the lunchpail purse, underneath the paint you're just a little girl." Logan has a long-standing love of Tom Petty. The only explanation Veronica can offer is that Petty's a blond, but she doesn't like to think about any patterns Logan might have involving blondes, because she would be one of those blonds. "So why'd you run away from me Veronica?"

"I didn't run away from you."

"Yes you did."

"I was just tired of all of it. I'd never left Neptune. I needed to get out." This is half the truth. The other half of the truth-well, it was long and messy and it didn't need to be shared with anyone right then, especially not Logan Echolls, who knew most of it but just wanted to hear her say it out loud.

"Did you even graduate?"

"I did. In three years. But no one needed to know that except Hearst and me, so I took the rest of the money and put it into this."

"Embezzlement?" He sounded impressed.

"Not really." It was, really, but she didn't need to impress Logan.

"You embezzled from the Lilly Kane Memorial Fund."

"It was in the spirit of Lilly Kane," she says, finally, because she can tell they both agree on that. Lilly Kane-the girl who changed both of them. After Lilly died and her mother left Veronica remembers Logan or one of his friends making some crack about about her hair looking like it had been cut by a lawnmower. She had cut it with kitchen scissors, actually, the ones we used to cut frozen pizzas. Her father had attempted to remedy it in typical paternal fashion: he took her to Great Clips, where they sat in the waiting area with the little boys and old men who were there for twelve dollar Tuesday. A mother would've taken her to a proper stylist, but he did what he could. He noticed, and he tried.

She still want to Great Clips. On Tuesdays. It's the perfect storm of Lilly Kane and Logan Echolls and her father-sort of like the last time she and Logan broke up. She reminded herself that the last time she and Logan broke up was supposed to be the last time, ever.

"Look, Logan," she said. "I'm closing up soon. I'm having dinner with some friends tonight. Come back at nine tomorrow and I'll give you a trial run as a secretary. But stay away from me until then. Deal?"

"I like a girl who knows what she wants," he smirked, and sauntered out the door. When he is well and truly out of sight, she slumped forward and put her head down on the desk. And then she sent out a text: _Something's happened. Can we have dinner tonight? Take-out, my place._

Yolanda and Chelsea were Veronica's Boston Best Friends, or at least that's their joke. BBFs. After Veronica and her father helped "find" Yolanda all those years ago, she and her husband Ben movedto Boston. She sent a postcard with picture of lobster trap on it that said "Trapped in Boston" on the front and had a short note on the back: "Give me a call if you're in town!" Four years later, Veronica was.

Chelsea and Veronica met clamming, the one time Veronica ever went clamming. Her boyfriend at the time was a Mainer, and they went up to a little campground on the coast with some friends of his. Chelsea was there wearing board shorts and a t-shirt from the county fair, and she was as deep in the mud as anyone, talking about how much she loved the smell of decomposing seaweed and cracking terrible jokes. Chelsea and Veronica shared a tent after Veronica broke up with Todd, and they went skinny dipping in the Atlantic after everyone else was asleep, and that was that.

And because they were her Boston Best Friends, Yolanda and Chelsea both showed up that night, and Chelsea came bearing Chunky Monkey as she always did, even though she had to cancel a blind date ("It was probably going to be terrible. The last guy June set me up with smelled like feet.").

"What happened?" Yolanda said, falling into her favorite armchair with a container of sesame chicken.

"Logan. Logan's back. Or here, I suppose, since he's never been here before."

"No shit," Yolanda said. "Boy's got it bad for you, my friend."

"Logan's your dead best friend's ex?" Chelsea asked. "The one who-"

"Yes. And now he's here, and he applied to be my secretary. And he propositioned me. That order."

"Doesn't waste any time, does he?" Yolanda muttered. If anything, Yolanda held Logan most responsible for everything that happened between her and Lilly and Veronica years ago. "But you made him leave, right?"

"Actually, he's coming back for a trial run tomorrow. I'm just planning to be as difficult as possible."

"I still don't know what the big deal is," Chelsea said. "This guy wants you. He's hot. Is that so bad?"

"Logan and Veronica are like a Shakespearean tragedy waiting to happen," Yolanda said. "Or maybe one that already has."

"Already has," Veronica agreed. "Only not quite Shakespearean. More like...some shitty teen drama."

"And you're both still alive-so worth another shot?" Chelsea asked.

"He's an asshole."

"Well, you gotta get rid of him Veronica," Yolanda said. "And I hope I never have to see him. And for God's sake, please don't have sex with him."

"What do you take me for?"

"Someone who has a lot of very, very good sex with Logan Echolls," she said.

"It was good," Veronica sighed.

"So why didn't you make him leave?" Chelsea said.

"Because he wasn't going to. I was hoping if I made it clear there was nothing here for him, he might go away on his own."

"Or maybe he'll settle in as your secretary, and hook up with some foxy cougar client, and you'll just have to sit by the sidelines and watch," Yolanda muttered.

"Two animal metaphors in one sentence there, 'Landa. You're going to have to be careful," Veronica said. "Though, speaking of, I got hired by a keeper at the Franklin Park Zoo today. She wants me to go undercover. As we speak the Franklin Park Zoo is considering Mallory Petersen's _very impressive_ work history at the San Diego Zoo."

"Remember clamming?" Chelsea snorted. "You don't like dirty jobs, Veronica."

"Well, I've got one."

"And an ex-boyfriend for your secretary. I don't envy your life right now," Yolanda said.

Veronica sometimes envied Yolanda's life. There were nights when she'd be visiting Ben and Yolanda, and Yolanda would have her feet up in her husband's lap and they'd look at each other with love and sex commingled in equal measure-Veronica envied that. She tried to hold her father's love somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach, then, so she wouldn't have to leave, and it helped a little to know she _is_ _loved_, in a different way but not a different measure.

"Do you two have any ideas to make him leave?"

"Get a boyfriend," Chelsea said, at the same time as Yolanda said "Be as unsexy as possible."

"Or blackmail him," Veronica Mars said. "The most typical Veronica Mars solution would be to blackmail him."

"If it's typical Veronica Mars, he'd probably like that," Yolanda said.

"On to the Chunky Monkey!" Chelsea said, and then tells them a long story about the gas station clerk who hit on her when she bought it, which devolved into a discussion of terrible pick-up lines, which devolved or evolved and changed again, and eventually all three of them were sitting on the floor and then Veronica said, "Want to have a sleepover?" And they all giggled and Yolanda sent Ben a text and they ended up sleeping there, in the living room, Veronica and Yolanda curled up in armchairs, Chelsea stretched out on the couch, like children.


	2. Tuesday

_A/N: Just so you're aware, I uploaded a new version of the first chapter with some very, very minor changes that will help with some contuity issues that will arise later with the original version. I don't think anyone will notice, but I wanted to make sure folks knew. _

_Disclaimer: The previous disclaimer still applies, and I'd just like to note that, while I've worked at zoos before, I've never worked at the Franklin Park Zoo and have no knowledge of their employees/hiring practices/heirarchy/aviculture practices. This is an entirely fictional work. _

Tuesday:

"_I used to need your love so badly_

_then I came to live with it_

_lately I get a faraway feeling_

_and the whole thing starts again."_

_- "The Apartment Song", Tom Petty_

Logan was going to be early on his first day of work, or at least on time. That's his intention. It will be impressive, and will plant a seed in Veronica's mind that will grow into forgiveness that will grow into sexual relations of the make-up variety. But somewhere between the split-level he's renting from an elderly man named Ralph and Mars Investigations there's a Dunkin' Donuts, and the universe neglected to inform Logan that it was competing for the award of slowest Dunkin' Donuts in Boston, or possibly Massachusetts or the world, and it was probably going to win. So a box of Munchkins and a coffee Coolatta were the downfall of Logan Echolls, but at least he could share the donut-holes with Veronica and maybe win her over that way. P.I.s had to like donuts at least as much as cops.

When Logan arrived at Mars Investigations it is seventeen past nine, and Veronica was at the front desk reading the _Tribune_. It looked a lot like the day before.

"You're late," she noted without looking up from the paper.

"Is that how you greet all your potential clients?"

"Clients don't come in this early. The light's too nice. It doesn't look seedy enough."

"Then why are you open?" If this were a real job, Logan would be extremely annoyed by this piece of information, and wonder why he even attempted to arrive early. He feels that annoyance edging into his voice now.

"To read the paper. I brought you one," Veronica held up the free paper she ran her ad in. "It uses short words so you'll understand, and has plenty of ads for phone sex."

"I think I deserve more than that. I brought you donut-holes." Logan dropped the box on the desk, and opened it to take one out.

"Contrary to popular belief, P.I.s and cops are not the same," Veronica said.

"Of course not. Which explains why your mouth is full."

"Correlation," she said around a mouthful. "Is not causation. It's a good thing secretarial work doesn't involve actual sleuthing." Logan chose not to discuss the crack detective work it took to find her, largely because it didn't happen exactly the way he described. He had begged Duncan for the address and then they made a blood vow not to tell Veronica, because she would probably frame both of them for embezzlement or something if she found out.

"Secretarial work involved sleuthing for you, Nancy Drew," Logan pointed out instead, and Veronica frowned.

"I was a special case. Still am. And we wouldn't want to hurt your pretty face."

"Aw, you think I'm pretty." It's one of the oldest come backs in the book, up there with "I'm rubber, you're glue," but he couldn't help it. Veronica brought out the worst in him. Maybe also the best. Logan had come to Boston because his therapist had told he needed to confront Veronica Mars and get over her, and because Duncan Kane was the one who had strong-armed Logan into therapy (only Duncan would make a terribly unfair bet with a drunk man to _help_ him) it had been a convenient way to weasel the address out of him. Logan Echolls had no intention of moving on from Veronica Mars, and every intention of moving in with her and making sweet, sweet, love.

Christ, she had him calling sex love. And nothing had happened yet.

"Well," Veronica said. "Since you're here I guess I can adjourn to my office. Unless-you don't know how to do anything, do you?"

Logan grinned. "Nope. You're going to have to teach me, Miss Mars."

And so Veronica groaned and showed him what to do brusquely, and then he watched her _adjourn to her office_ in her ill-fitting slacks. "Are you trying to bore me away, Veronica? It's not going to work," he shouted after her, and she didn't say a word. He wished she had some sort of intercom connecting her phone to his, and then he would call her and ask her again, but she didn't. He opened the paper Veronica had left on his desk. It was the _Trib_, and he wondered if that meant anything before realizing he was acting like a girl.

He was halfway through the local news when a tall woman came in, which disproved Veronica's claim because the light was actually quite good. She looked at Logan with a sort of cross-eyed superior look, and Logan thought if her husband was cheating on her she probably deserved it.

"Where's the girl?" she asked without sitting down.

"Miss Mars is in her office." He said. "I'm her secretary. Let me go see if she can help you."

"Someone's here to see you, _Miss_ Mars," he said with false politeness when he got to Veronica's door.

"Did you get their name? Do you have any work experience at all?"

"Of course not. But I watch 'The Office.'"

"And I prefer _Ms._ Mars," she said as he left. Logan sent the superior-eyed woman in, put his feet on the desk, and returned to the paper. When he was on world news, she walked about and sniffed.

"If you had been here last time I'm sure I wouldn't have hired her."

"She keeps me around for my looks, ma'am!" Logan replied, hoping Veronica's office was sound proof. Logan waited a full ten minutes after the client was out the door to go back to Veronica's office and attempt to get the dirt. She was seated at her desk, squinting waspishly at her computer. She didn't look up.

"So, what was she in here for? Husband cheating?"

"Did you even check for a wedding ring? You're terrible at this."

"Boyfriend, then? Or girlfriend-can gays marry out here?"

"Missing birds. And that's all you need to know until you've signed the confidentiality agreement," Veronica said, her eyes still on the computer.

"What confidentiality agreement?"

"The one you haven't signed. Also, did I say you could come in here? I'm working."

"On Facebook, I'll bet," he grinned. "Or looking me up on that P.I. website of yours to see what I've done since we were last in contact. I bet you check every day to see if I got a DUI."

"Don't have to, Duncan tells me everything," she said, a smirk forming on her lips. Logan tried not to smirk back, because he was pretty sure Duncan had _not_, in fact, told her everything.

"And I thought we were friends!"

"But he likes me better."

"Probably because he never sees you. You're still annoying, you know that?"

"And yet here you are. Did I ask you to be here? Please leave."

"So this is your office, huh? You know you never gave me a tour. I don't even know where the bathroom is," he said, blatantly ignoring her.

"It's the other door, Logan."

"The one to the stairs? It's upstairs?"

"Why did you even-No, _not_ the one to the stairs. You don't need to go upstairs. It's where I keep my collection of large African game. Why do I even talk to you?"

"Because you love me," Logan said, and as he said it all the humor drained from his voice. He didn't mean to say that. It wasn't time.

"Right. Please leave, or I'll have to fire you and get the police to issue some sort of restraining order or something," there was not much venom behind her threat, just weariness, but the fact that she had thought about restraining orders made Logan jumpy. "As much as I enjoy this reunion, I do need the money, unlike other people in this room."

Logan knew when he wasn't wanted, and although he sometimes ignored that information, he knew better this time. So he left, and went back to the front desk and the newspaper, which wasn't as fun. Veronica stayed in her office the rest of the day, which meant either she didn't eat or had some sort of food stocked in there, and he wasn't sure whether to be bothered or glad he was getting to her. He settled for a little of both. At five o'clock she came out and said, "Please go to whatever hotel you're calling home." And he said, "I'm not staying at a hotel" and he left, because his therapist said you should be patient with people.

Logan had planned to stay in a hotel, something like the Neptune Grand, he thought, where he could come out in a wife beater and boxers when the cleaning ladies came around and give everyone a little thrill. But when he asked his taxi-driver to take him to a hotel of questionable repute the man had asked how long he was staying, and then said his pal Ralph was renting a couple rooms for a decent price and then he could have a kitchen or at least a microwave. The taxi driver's pal Ralph turned out to be charging slightly more than a decent price, and a couple rooms turned out to be two rooms exactly, because the kitchen ran into the living room and Logan had to go downstairs and use Ralph's bathroom, but Logan liked Ralph on sight so he took it. And he didn't regret it when he came home and saw Ralph on the porch swing, swilling a beer. Ralph was built like a barrel, wearing a Red Sox shirt, and apparently retired, because he did not appear to have moved since that morning.

"My man Ralph!" he said as he came up the steps. "You didn't tell me that Dunkin' Donuts was the slowest Dunkin Donuts ever."

"You didn't ask. Working hard for your money, eh?"

"You could say that," Logan said with a grin. It seemed like fewer people out her recognized him, or at least Ralph certainly didn't.

"How's your lady work?" When Logan had told Ralph he was hired as a secretary, Ralph had told him he should really be in construction. Logan hadn't told Ralph that he hadn't meant to end up a secretary. He had actually planned to go into Veronica's office and say "I'm here about the help wanted ad" and when she was confused because there _wasn't_ a help wanted ad he would say "I want to be a private eye because I only have eyes for you." It would be terrible and cheesy, and Veronica would kind of love it, and it would be like asking forgiveness without having to, and then everything would be good again and...

But there _had _been a help wanted ad, and Logan could tell that Veronica wasn't just going to go to coffee with him, and even if she did she would expect him to leave right after-but he had a feeling she would give him a chance if he pretended he really did want to be her secretary, because it was different, because it said "I'm not leaving even if you want me to."

"Alright. But I'm working on a lady and that is not going so well," Logan said, instead of telling Ralph the whole painful story.

"My boy! You can't say that after one day. Where'd you meet this woman?"

"I work for her," Logan finally said. The rest was more than he wanted to get into now.

"You're her secretary? She should be _your_ secretary. That was the way it was when I met my Ruth." Logan had to wonder if Ralph meant the Bambino, but then he checked for wedding bands as Veronica had advised-and sure enough, there it was.

"Ruth?" Logan said anyway, because he didn't want to talk about why Veronica wasn't his secretary.

"My wife. She was the secretary at the construction firm where I worked. All the guys wanted her-but I got her."

"How?"

"You don't want to hear that story. Things are different now." Ralph look shifty eyed. "Obviously, if you're a lady's secretary." Veronica _should_ be his secretary, Logan thought. And she would wear pencil skirts and blouses with the top two buttons undone and be unfailingly polite to him. She would pine away for him and wet her panties if he even looked at her. It would be much nicer than the way things were.

"Do you think being her secretary makes me the girl in this relationship?"

"Are you acting like a girl, boy? Because then maybe I should start calling you woman and you can make me dinner," Ralph said. "Want a beer?" Logan wasn't sure whether to say yes or no, but then he said yes because he _did_ want a beer, and one wouldn't hurt, would it? And if he had a few more, well, it was because he was trying not to think about what happened junior year and what that might have to do with him being the girl in his relationship with Veronica, and it wouldn't happen again. Before he went to bed that night, Logan promised to pick up more beer for Ralph the next day, and then he tumbled into the sort of heavy sleep that was empty of dreams.


End file.
